By the end, after they had pushed themselves as far as any pitching staff in modern baseball history and still lost, the Cleveland Indians could do little more than collapse where they stood. For left-hander Andrew Miller, removed during the seventh inning of Game 7 of the World Series, following his 1,423rd and final pitch of 2016, that meant the floor of the Indians' clubhouse.

"Total body, physically — I was done," he recalled. "I just lay down there on the floor."

For closer Cody Allen, the end came when manager Terry Francona came to the mound in the ninth inning of Game 7 and Allen couldn't summon a convincing argument for staying in the game.

"I can still pitch," Allen told Francona, as the latter recounted Monday.

"How do you feel?" Francona asked.

"Terrible."

For ace Corey Kluber, it would be nearly two months before he so much as picked up a baseball again.

"Right around the new year," he said. "It was actually easier than I thought it would be."

Even some 3½ months later, what the Indians' shorthanded pitching staff did during its exhausting march through the 2016 postseason, right up to and including the fateful, 10-inning loss to the Chicago Cubs in that Game 7, is a source of wonder and awe. It is a font of memories, an invitation for examination, an emotional tug of war between pain and pride.

"I think about it a lot," Miller said Monday at the Indians' spring training headquarters. "Unfortunately, it's hard to avoid it. All winter when I was home, the Cubs were all over TV - and rightfully so. They deserve that. But it's a little bit of a bad taste. We're the team that came closest to it and came up short, so I think it hurts us the most."

All this time later, it is still worth examining what the Indians' pitchers did last fall. It was a performance whose repercussions have been felt not only in Cleveland - where the Indians used some of the extra revenue generated by their World Series run to add free agent slugger Edwin Encarnacion to an already loaded roster - but around the industry, where a re-examination appears to be taking place, triggered by Francona and his band of merry relievers, about leverage and value and bullpen-usage patterns.

"Our bullpen guys deserve so much credit because what we did - it was a little unique," Francona said. "There were reasons for it. But if one or two of them would've rolled their eyes, it wouldn't have worked. I wouldn't have done it. But because they cooperate, we trust them. And in return they trust us, which we appreciate. ... We gambled a little bit. For the most part, it worked. [But] there's a fine line between that working out and I'm considered smart, and that going to [hell] and I'm considered dumb."

There is at least one additional repercussion from the Indians' heavy workloads of 2016 - 249 1/3 combined regular season and postseason innings for Kluber, 81 2/3 for Allen and 93 2/3 for Miller, all significant jumps from 2015 - in that it brings a new set of variables and challenges for 2017: a shorter offseason, a later start to throwing programs and altered pitching schedules this spring.

Photos from Game 7 of the World Series at Progressive Field in Cleveland on Nov. 2, 2016.

That is especially true of Miller, the lefty fireman whom the Indians acquired from the New York Yankees at the 2016 trade deadline. Miller's spring is further complicated by the fact that he will pitch for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic beginning in early March - a thought that Francona said has left the Indians' management with its collective "heart in our throat."

Somehow, the Indians have to navigate the paradox between easing Miller into his spring, because of last year's extended season and heavy workload, and ramping him up quickly for the WBC. It isn't a situation they particularly relish.

"I would never tell somebody not to do it. I mean, my goodness, to represent your country [is] a huge honor," Francona said. "But I'd be lying if I said we're not going to worry about him."

There will be limitations on Miller's usage in the WBC, Indians President Chris Antonetti said, including no multiple-inning appearances and no appearances on back-to-back days. The Indians also have asked him to throw fewer sliders, which are more taxing on the elbow.

"He won't be used like he was used last October," Antonetti said, laughing.

So Antonetti is comfortable with that arrangement?

"No," he said with another laugh, this one a little more nervous. "I wouldn't say we're comfortable."

Miller downplays the concerns and argues that not only will he return after the WBC just fine, but he may actually benefit over the rest of the season by getting into game shape so early.

"I have a chance to play with a team of the best American players," Miller said. "The Dominican lineup is insane. If you can survive that, you can survive anything. It will be nice to have that level of competition right out of the gate and spice up spring training at this point in my career. Hopefully it's something I can look back on and say I got better for it. [But] the most important thing is that I'm here for the Cleveland Indians when it matters."

The way Francona used his bullpen, particularly Miller and Allen, in October - often leaning on them for multiple innings and in back-to-back (and sometimes back-to-back-to-back) games - was possible only because of the extra off-days built into the postseason and is unsustainable for a 162-game regular season. But Francona will be sticking with at least one element of that system in 2017, saying that he plans to use Miller in the highest-leverage situations, typically to face the heart of opponents' orders in their last trip through the lineup, rather than tethering him to the eighth inning, as with many top setup men.

"If you feel like the game's on the line," Francona said, "you'd like to have your best pitcher in there."

The Indians figure to have plenty of late-inning leads to protect in 2017. After winning 94 games, the American League Central title and the AL pennant in 2016, they return almost every significant piece in 2017, plus a few high-impact additions. Not only Encarnacion, whom they signed to a three-year, $60 million deal, but also pitchers Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar and left fielder Michael Brantley, all of whom the Indians lost to season-ending injuries at various points last year.

"We don't want to carry ourselves any differently," Francona said. "This is a new team, and it's going to have its own personality, even with so many people coming back. I don't want the new guys to always be thinking, 'Damn, they're always talking about 2016.' That doesn't help.